Blue whale sightings a boon for NOAA

Some of the world's largest mammals have been spotted raising their mammoth heads and fluking just outside Dana Point Harbor this week.

Awe-inspiring shows started Monday when whale-watch captains reported seeing the whales off the coast of south San Clemente. Word on the water is that herds of blue whales have been seen heading north from Mexico. In April, whale-watch captains reported seeing a few scouts, but the sighting of multiples means that blue whale season is upon us, said Corey Hall, a veteran whale-watch captain with Dana Wharf Sport Fishing and Whale Watching.

"On Monday we saw three whales within 300 yards of each other feeding on krill," Hall, of San Juan Capistrano said. "It's a sign of the beginning of the season. We've seen blue whales each day this week. Blue whales are starting to come in herds."

Hall promptly fired off a detailed email to Monica DeAngelis, a marine mammal biologist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency. In it he included the longitude and latitude of the whale sightings, the time, the size of the whales and their behavior.

For researchers studying whale numbers, the mammas' locations, behavior and feedings are valuable information. De Angelis points to Hall as exemplary among those providing reports. Others helping out include Voyager in Redondo Beach and the Long Beach Aquarium.

Hall, who's been on the water for more than two decades, is one of a handful of whale experts helping DeAngelis with a new pilot program developed to shed more data on whale's year-round activities. Hall, who spends days on the water each week, is a sort of 'boots-on-the ground' for DeAngelis and will help fill in gaps left by some scientific reports gathered by NOAA, a federal agency tasked with monitoring marine mammals and sea life.

The program seeks not only to record data on blue whales but includes fin, humpback and gray whales. DeAngelis came up with the program after recent following years-long data collected to help restrict ship and commercial vessel traffic around Southern California ports.

In June vessels traveling in and out of ports off the California coast began using new traffic lanes. The lanes, which channel traffic into and out of San Francisco Bay, the Santa Barbara Channel and the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, were developed to protect whales from ship collisions. According to DeAngelis and other experts, blue whales are the most at risk. Scientists and marine researchers are hopeful the new, rerouted shipping lanes will reduce the number of collisions between sea vessels and marine life following a cluster of blue-whale strikes recorded in 2007.

"A lot of our scientific formal research surveys are a short time and done in a specific location," DeAngelis said. "We don't have year-round information. One of our best resources are whale-watch companies, shipping agencies and naturalists."

DeAngelis said the data collected will help plug some gaps in data collected for NOAA models that were developed using the more structured surveys.

While whale sightings are often exciting, not sighting whales in the same spot they were observed the day before can also be very informative. It helps provide researchers more details on what the mammals are doing.

"If animals are here and it comes down to ship strikes, with this data we can decide whether we would do something different," DeAngelis said. "We look at Corey and the other naturalists as a wealth of date."

DeAngelis said researchers, who spent years gathering information to get the ship lane restrictions put into place, are often constrained by ship times, weather, personnel and funding. Shipping industry officials have also been enlisted to participate in the program.

Recent reports of blue whales from Hall and others tells DeAngelis that because the blue whales have been spotted close to each other, means they will start hanging around this area. In Monterey Bay experts have reported as many as 100 blue whales in a group.

"When you see a few, it indicates there could be more in the area and on their way," DeAngelis said. "We've had years where we've seen them aggregate until November. We certainly didn't see them in Orange County so close to the shore in the last few years. If we were to prioritize a group we want to look at, it would be blue whales."

In recent weeks DeAngelis said she's gotten reports of whale strandings in Northern California and Washington. Some showed signs of entanglement, others appeared to be involved in collisions. Exactly what the collision was, was unclear, DeAngelis said.

To get involved with whale reports for the NOAA project, email DeAngelis at whales@NOAA.gov.